ऐ गुलाब (O, Rose )… A Roseate Sonnet written in Urdu/ Hindi and translated into English, a classic sonnet which is fashioned into Persian ‘Rubaiyat or Rubaiyaan‘! To know about both of these poetic forms, must read the epilogue below this post. Also, look for the glossary for tough Urdu words. ऐ गुलाब ऐ गुलाबऐ गुलाब
ऐ गुलाब !
O, ROSE
Glossary:
सुर्ख़: Red, Bright.
सलोना: Pretty, Attractive.
किमख़ाब: Brocade, A royal fabric woven with silk and gold threads.
सरगोशियां: Whispers, Gossips (काना-फूसियाँ).
शबाब: Youth and beauty.
इश्क़ की रुबाब: The blessings of love. (रुबाब is a blessing).
वाकिफ़: Aware, Cognizant.
जीवन के फ़लसफ़े: Philosophies of life.
सफ़हे : (सफ़हा) A page of a book or a notebook.
गुमां: Pride (Contracted from of गुमान ).
नक़ाब: Veil, face coverings. But, here, ‘Ignorance’.
जतन: Putting in the effort, Trying hard.
बालों में चाँदी: Hair turning gray.
निशां: Traces (contracted form of निशान).
Epilogue:
Childhood, youth, and old age…these three stages of a woman’s life are portrayed in the three quatrains of this Sonnet through the metaphor, Rose. The couplet, volte-face, depicts the philosophy of her life. This poem’s quatrains are designed as a set of Rubaai ( रुबाई ), the beautiful Persian poetic genre, and the couplet is a Sher. I have framed an acrostic of ‘ ऐ गुलाब‘ in the ultimate quatrain which is, technically, formed as an acrostic of ‘ROSE‘ in the English version of Roseate Sonnet.
What is a RUBAI?
Rubāʿī, a Persian poetic form is a quatrain, a poem, or a verse of a poem consisting of four lines. In classic Persian literature, the Rubai is written as a four-line (or two-couplet) poem, with a rhyme-scheme AABA or AAAA.
Persian poetry is considered lyrical, so Rubais are framed in longer meters, usually of 14 to 16 syllables long, in tetrameter form. Rhyme, Rhythm, and Cadence are the keys to creating the perfect Rubaiyat.
What is a ‘ROSEATE SONNET’?
“It’s a new, experimental poetic form developed by Dr. Ampat Koshy in 2012. Like a classic Shakespearean Sonnet, it too has 14 lines in which a couplet follows the first two quatrains. Then follows the ultimate quatrain which starts its first line with R, the second with O, the third with S, and the fourth with E to form an acrostic that reads ‘ROSE.’ The couplet acts as a volte-face, from where the poem shows a paradigm shift.
This form has no other constraints like rhyme, rhythm, or blank verse, unlike its earlier forms or variants. There is no fixed syllable count for the lines though I have followed all the rules being a great aficionado of classic Shakespearean Sonnet.
Though it seems fragile, a Rose is not at all transient as it’s considered. It lasts forever. From a bud to an old rose… From gracing its branches till it dries and pulverizes to the earth…but it stays…The fragrance remains even after it’s gone. A Rose lingers in all the five human senses even after evanescing into the five elements. Like us, the Homo sapiens, a rose is perennial in its entity. So is this poetic genre about ROSES, “A Roseate Sonnet” which holds a part of history in the literary coliseum. It propounds a new stream of poetry that will be talked about and read until our races survive.
A Rose is evergreen. Isn’t it?
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